1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information handling systems and more particularly to inventory collection optimization by selective binding of pre-boot drivers.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One issue that relates to information handling system, especially server type information handling systems, is how to best provide system management solutions to a customer. With known server type information handling systems, many manufacturers provide an option of a Remote or Out of band (OOB) system management solution to the customer. Typically, this system management solution includes system management software which executes an inventory collection application. The inventory collection application collects system inventory information along with system configuration data and stores the system inventory information and the system configuration data to a persistent storage area. The system inventory information includes a set of properties such as Device location, Name, Vendor, firmware version etc. The system configuration data includes information regarding adjustable device settings. The inventory collection application often executes during every system boot-up. However, while inventory collection is useful for OOB system management, there is a penalty of a longer boot-up time to perform the inventory collection operation.
In known system boot scenarios which do not involve server deployment, an inventory collection operation is executed to determine if more value add operations like matching the firmware and configurations on part replacement, part addition/removal detection needs to be run. This inventory collection operation adds up to the boot-up time.
Normally the inventory application drivers bind to each device during the pre-boot process, causing execution of system management code (part replacement, detecting additions/removals) for all devices. Binding each device links an inventory application driver with a respective device and maintains synchronization between the inventory application driver and a respective device. FIG. 1, labeled Prior Art, shows a block diagram of an example of this binding between inventory application drivers and devices. More specifically, each device of the information handling system includes a corresponding pre boot instance which is generated by a respective application driver.